# DependsOnCustomDependency(string)

> Allows you to specify that an Asset has a custom dependency.

## Definition

* **Type:** Method
* **Namespace:** [UnityEditor.AssetImporters](/engine/6000.0/script-reference/unityeditor/assetimporters.md)
* **Assembly:** UnityEditor

```csharp
public void DependsOnCustomDependency(string dependency)
```

### Parameters

**** (\[string]\(https\://learn.microsoft.com/dotnet/api/system.string)): Name of dependency. You can use any name you like, but because these names are global across all your Assets, it can be useful to use a naming convention (eg a path-based naming system as in the example below) to avoid clashes with other custom dependency names.

### Remarks

Use custom dependency if need to setup a dependency to something that can't be expressed as either an source asset dependency or artifact dependency.

### Examples

```csharp
using UnityEngine;
using UnityEditor.AssetImporters;
using UnityEditor.Experimental;
using UnityEngine.Assertions;
using UnityEditor;

class MySystem
{
    public const string CustomDependencyName = "MyProject/Settings";

    public static string GetSetting()
    {
        return "42";
    }

    public static void RegisterCustomDependency()
    {
        // You cannot register a custom dependency during the Asset Import process, so this method must be called before the Asset is imported.
        UnityEditor.AssetDatabase.RegisterCustomDependency(CustomDependencyName, Hash128.Compute(GetSetting()));
    }
}

class SomeValue : ScriptableObject
{
    public int value;
}

[ScriptedImporter(1, "data", AllowCaching = true)]
public class MyDataImporter : ScriptedImporter
{
    public override void OnImportAsset(AssetImportContext ctx)
    {
        ctx.DependsOnCustomDependency(MySystem.CustomDependencyName);

        var someObj = ScriptableObject.CreateInstance<SomeValue>();

        var setting = MySystem.GetSetting();
        if (setting == "42")
            someObj.value = 100;
        else
            someObj.value = -1;

        ctx.AddObjectToAsset("someObj", someObj);
    }
}
```